[Bumped up]: Remember to use the neo-neocon portal to shop at Amazon

The New Neo Posted on by

[NOTE: I’ll be bumping this up to the top every now and then through the holidays, just as a reminder.]

How’s that for shameless self-promotion?

In the process of writing this post I realized that once again it’s November. It’s almost Thanksgiving. And that means that Christmas, Chanukah, and whatever other holiday might suit your fancy are all coming up sooner than you think.

So I’m encouraging you to feel their hot breaths on your neck and solve all your gift-giving dilemmas by turning to that online colossus, Amazon.

And if you use those widgets on my right sidebar to click through for all your Amazon purchases (now and at any other time of year) you will also be giving a small but still not insignificant gift to neo-neocon (it adds up, folks), and all without spending any extra money. What could be more wonderful?

[NOTE: In case you have ad blocker or something of that sort, and the Amazon widgets don’t show up on your computer, go here.]

Morsi grabs more power in Egypt

The New Neo Posted on by

No surprise whatsoever here:

Egypt’s president on Thursday issued constitutional amendments that placed him above judicial oversight and ordered the retrial of Hosni Mubarak for the killing of protesters in last year’s uprising.

Mohammed Morsi also decreed immunity for the Islamist-dominated panel drafting a new constitution from any possible court decisions to dissolve it, a threat that had been hanging over the controversial assembly.

Liberal and Christian members withdrew from the assembly during the past week to protest what they say is the hijacking of the process by Morsi’s allies, who they saw are trying to push through a document that will have an Islamist slant marginalizing women and minority Christians and infringing on personal liberties. Several courts have been looking into cases demanding the dissolution of the panel.

The Egyptian leader also decreed that all decisions he has made since taking office in June and until a new constitution is adopted and a new parliament is elected ”” which is not expected before next spring ”” are not subject to appeal in court or by any other authority. He also barred any court from dissolving the Islamist-led upper house of parliament, a largely toothless body that has also faced court cases.

The moves effectively remove any oversight on Morsi, the longtime Muslim Brotherhood figure who became Egypt’s first freely elected president last summer after the Feb. 11, 2011 fall of autocrat Hosni Mubarak. They come as Morsi is riding high on lavish praise from President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton for mediating an end to eight days of fighting between Israel and Gaza’s Hamas rulers.

I said “no surprise whatsoever,” and I meant it. Here’s an excerpt from my very first post written at the beginning of the Egyptian rebellion against Mubarak:

I have been concerned from the start about the possible influence and popularity of the Muslim Brotherhood, a currently-banned Islamist fundamentalist group that has its roots in Egypt in the earlier part of the twentieth century…

The Egyptian people are protesting in favor of democracy. As a person who remembers the turmoil of the Iranian revolution of 1979””the different groups temporarily united for the Shah’s overthrow and then jockeying for position (vainly) against the fundamentalist Islamists who quickly established their dominance””I have to say the situation makes me nervous.

I went on to write post after post about the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and the fact that it was a distinct possibility that they would end up the winners there (see this, for example). And believe me, I’m not trumpeting my great brilliance or unusual insight. It didn’t take either to see the writing on the wall.

Anyone who is surprised by today’s news—which may or may not include members of the Obama administration—is either a fool or a liar, or perhaps both.

If “incompetent” is a new codeword…

The New Neo Posted on by

…for “black” in the eyes of Democrats, what does that say about what they actually think of black people?

And what words are left that are PC enough to pass codeword muster when criticizing a black person (or a woman, for that matter)? Has all criticism of them become verboten as racist and/or sexist (unless, of course, they’re Republicans such as Condoleezza Rice or Sarah Palin, in which case every explicitly disgusting epithet that comes to mind is perfectly fine, no code words necessary)?

So, what negative words could Susan Rice be called that would be okay? Are there any?

(And did my use of the word “verboten” in paragraph two mark me as a secret Nazi?)

Of course this is all patently absurd. Any thinking person should immediately see the logical flaw in the left’s charges about the racist/sexist nature of criticism of Rice and words like “incompetent,” which used to be perfectly good and completely race- and sex-neutral terms. Any thinking person knows that blacks and women—and people who are both—can actually be incompetent, and to consider criticism of them to automatically be racist and/or sexist is not only foolish but is playing the race/gender card in an especially pernicious, hypocritical, and self-serving way. What’s more, it encourages the persistence of the truly incompetent in high positions.

But it works to demonize the right, and that’s all that matters to the left.

This behavior didn’t begin with this administration, by the way. But the use of the ploy by the left has most definitely increased since Barack Obama has become president, and that’s no accident. Obama explicitly gave the green light to practitioners of the art by modeling the behavior during his 2008 campaign. Remember this, for example? I do:

We know what kind of campaign [Republicans are] going to run. They’re going to try to make you afraid. They’re going to try to make you afraid of me. He’s young and inexperienced and he’s got a funny name. And did I mention he’s black?

The president not only said this himself, and quite early on (that statement was made in June of 2008), but can you think of a single time he’s spoken out against others who use the race or sex cards in this particular way? I doubt you can, nor do I think you ever will.

Obama, the great uniter.

Thanksgiving leftovers

The New Neo Posted on by

Reading this reminds me of the happy fact that there wasn’t a single political discussion at my family’s Thanksgiving celebration yesterday. For me that’s a big relief, because my experience is that such things never, never, never lead to anything good.

Did I eat too much yesterday? You betcha, but not enough to become ill.

My favorites? Too numerous to mention, but probably the cranberry compote my sister-in-law always makes, the sauerkraut in wine (yes, sauerkraut) a friend brings, and an amazing sweet potato puree with goat cheese mixed in (sounds bad but it was very good; the goat cheese is unidentifiable, and it gives the whole thing a light creaminess), and a Nesselrode pie minus the little died fruit thingees that sometimes reside there to trap the unwary.

The weather was beautiful, too. I’m in the country, so when I took my usual walk I had to wear orange because it’s deer season. A tiny bit frightening, especially every time I heard rustling in the woods, which was often.

And today—why, turkey salad and turkey soup, of course.

Happy Thanksgiving

The New Neo Posted on by

[NOTE: This is a repeat of a previous post]

I wish all of you a wonderful Thanksgiving. Here’s some corny American pictorial propaganda in honor of the occasion, one of my favorite holidays:

This painting was not originally created for the Thanksgiving holiday. It was part of Rockwell’s “Four Freedoms” series of 1941. Inspired by a post-Pearl Harbor speech of FDR’s about the war effort and why we were fighting, and designed to help sell war bonds, this particular one illustrated “Freedom from Want.”

So on this Thanksgiving Day I’ll reiterate the sentiment: may we all have freedom—of religion, of speech, from want, from fear.

John Podhoretz takes his turn at an election postmortem

The New Neo Posted on by

By now you’re probably heartily sick of these “what went wrong for Republicans in the 2012 election and what we should do about it” articles. But Podhoretz has a somewhat different take on the whole thing, and it’s worth reading whether you end up agreeing with him or not.

One of the more interesting parts of the article to me was probably one of the more minor, but it shed light on a bit of a mystery. Towards the beginning of the campaign, when Republicans were throwing their hats into the presidential ring or declining to do so, I became more and more puzzled and disappointed when the people I thought might have had the best chance to win failed to enter. I wondered why so few wanted to even try to defeat Obama although he seemed vulnerable this year.

Of course I knew that many of them must have been reluctant to face the scrutiny, hatred, and downright defamation that would be their lot and the lot of their family members if they entered the race against the president. But still, it seemed that a few more of them should have braved it.

Podhoretz offers the following explanation:

Obama and his team let it be known in the spring of 2011 that they intended to raise and spend an unprecedented $1 billion””$250 million more than in 2008””without having to drop so much as a nickel on anything but the general election against the Republicans. This is probably the key to understanding why the Republican field in 2011 came down to the distressingly uncharismatic array of B-listers like Mitt Romney, Tim Pawlenty, Rick Perry, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, Jon Huntsman, and a couple of ludicrous outliers who thought they had nothing to lose by running. A Republican senator explained it to me at the time: “That’s one billion dollars aimed like a laser-guided munition at the reputation of a single person.”

There were more attractive, more presentable, and more (theoretically) electable possibilities””potential candidates as conversant with conservative ideas as they are with practical governing strategies and who possess the vocabulary to unite the two. But those possibilities might either have had problematic family issues or other private matters they did not want aired””or they were simply intimidated by the immensity of the challenge or by the relative paucity of their own experience on the national stage. They would not enter the race no matter how much they were touted or how eagerly major donors assured them they would raise the necessary dollars to win the nomination. The conditions were favorable for a dramatic charge at a wounded sitting president, and yet they would not go.

Thus, the $1-billion-dollar laser-guided munition, discussed early enough in 2011 to make anyone nervous, may have been the “killer app” of the entire campaign.

Sounds plausible to me.

There’s an awful lot more in there; read the whole thing and see what you think.

And on a different topic, Andrew McCarthy has an excellent summary of Benghazi so far. Send it to some liberals you know and ask them if any of it concerns them at all—that is, if you can get them to read it in the first place.

Voters just want to have fun

The New Neo Posted on by

There might just be something to this.

Commenter “Bob from Virginia” writes:

Bernard Goldberg just pointed [out that] the normal conditions of “you fail you get fired” don’t apply to this President, because his appeal is emotional.

Which ties in quite nicely with this comment from “Bart” at PJ:

I’ve looked at this election from every angle I could, and taking into account the results of the last several elections, my conclusion is this: the race for President of the US is a high school level popularity contest. Issues do not matter. The state of the country does not matter. Nothing matters but with which candidate the average voter would prefer to spend a night out on the town.

Carter, a scolding Sunday school teacher versus Reagan, your favorite uncle.

Mondale, the old school smarmy apparatchik versus your favorite uncle.

Dukakis, an uptight, emotionless drone versus GHWB ”“ slight edge to GHWB.

Clinton, Elvis reborn, versus”¦ GHWB.

Clinton, ibid, versus angry old man Bob Dole.

Gore, your worst nightmare of a high school principal, versus aw shucks GWB.

Kerry, a self-absorbed fop versus the above.

Obama versus another angry old man. Obama versus a squeaky clean choir boy.

I know some will accuse me of being Master of the Obvious, but that has always been one of my humble gifts. Call it the Cyndi Lauper electorate ”“ they just want to have fun. Republicans need someone fun at the top of the ticket.

And note that, in the Cyndi Lauper song, it’s girls who especially want to have fun. Note also that, in the 2012 election, unmarried women and the under-30 crowd voted for Obama in droves. And so:

By the way, that’s Cyndi’s real mother in the video, but her father is played by professional wrestling manager “Captain” Lou Albano.

Cook that bird

The New Neo Posted on by

[NOTE: This is a repeat of an old post, with a bit added that’s new.]

The big day is tomorrow. As usual, there are many pointers on how best to cook that bird.

I have a simple method: it almost doesn’t matter what you do, just get a good turkey and the rest will follow. A bird will be dry or moist, tasty or bland, depending on its nature more than on the cooking method you use.

Within reason, of course. The principle holds true as long as you cook it according to any of the generally accepted, tried and true methods. I’ve used somewhat lower longer heat and somewhat higher shorter heat, basted it more and basted it less, covered it with cheesecloth or not, and haven’t noticed any patterns—except that, since you douse it in gravy and cranberry sauce anyway before you eat it, even a piece of bland dry turkey meat ends up tasting pretty good in the end.

The whole point is really the rest of the food anyway, isn’t it? I’m a sweet-potato-sans-marshmallow gal, as well as a proponent of the pumpkin-pie-can-be-easily-dispensed-with school. Pecan pie, on the other hand, is a must-have, despite the fact that it packs in about 1,000 calories a bite.

Thanksgiving has always been one of my favorite holidays, although not the traveling. Why do I like it so much? Well, unlike Christmas, the season doesn’t seem to start too early and drag on forever. There are no gifts involved, so the focus is on the day itself. The concept—giving thanks for what we have—is a good one, and at least theoretically embraceable by all. And the food is fabulous.

Hispanic votes…

The New Neo Posted on by

…did not make the difference in this election, although they may have mattered in a few states such as New Mexico, Florida, Nevada and Colorado.

Nor do Hispanic voters adhere to conservative values, fiscal or social.

The article doesn’t say it, because it focuses on the Hispanic vote, but the difference that made a difference in most swing states, IMHO, was voters under 30 and unmarried women (there’s a fair amount of overlap there, by the way).

Oh, and here’s an update on those missing McCain voters: it turns out they showed up after all.

Again, the purpose of this Monday-morning quarterbacking is to try to understand what really happened, and not merely repeat the myths about what happened. The goal is for Republicans to fix the problem next time—unless, of course, they continue to Thirst for Death. And yes, it will be difficult, because of the pervasive influence of the leftist slant of the entertainment industry, MSM, and educators.

Especially educators. More about that in future posts.

And to those of you who say “don’t bother, all is lost,” my response is that if you’re correct than these efforts will be futile. But if you’re incorrect then we will have given up a fight that’s vital and winnable, all because of our own lack of effort. Doesn’t make sense to me to do that.